Beginning another memory piece

 My cousin introduced me to Esther more than twenty-five years ago, Esther needed a referral for family-based daycare for her new baby in the neighborhood. Esther called me back a few years later for a recommendation for a daycare center for her toddler. What had started out as a couple of phone calls has over the years grown into a long friendship that has even survived Esther, Frank, and Maya moving out to the suburbs.

Frank's father was an academic and he spent a good deal of his career living in Southeast Asia. Frank was born in what was then Burma. His father was expelled because of his political views and Frank started kindergarten in Mandalay.

Frank's mother chic. She loved clothes. She was an accomplished seamstress. She bought wonderful fabrics in the various fabric markets where she lived with her family. She had an incredible collection of textiles.

Frank's parents died this summer, within a week of one another, both after a long and difficult struggle with dementia. Frank and Esther came by a few weeks ago with two boxes of textiles. One box was filled with silk blouses that had been made for Frank's mom. Three of them were Ikat dyed.

The timelapse video below shows the labor-intensive process of tie-dying the warp threads before weaving.

Frank explained to me that Burmese silk was made in several different qualities and these Ikat dyed blouses were made of the highest quality silk. The blouses are probably the equivalent of a current size six or eight. it isn't a whole lot of yardage.

In order to use the blouses, I had to carefully unpick all of the stitching.

I had to unstitch each of the darts and then carefully unpick the stitching on each of the sleeves.

I noticed that the sleeves were first basted into place before being sewn by machine. Un-sewing the black blouse was 

incredibly hard on my eyes.

Here are the three blouses mostly disassembled. 

My task is to make two wall hangings out of these beautiful textiles, one for Frank and one for his brother. Frank and Esther gave me free rein to do as I pleased.

I had thought that it would be nice to line the Ikat stripes and then loosely weave them together on the wonderful heavy black silk dupioni ( the heaviest and most beautiful I have ever touched --that is part of Frank's mother's textile stash) that I will be using as the base for both wall hangings.

I decided to start by using fabric from the sleeves so if it was a bad idea I wouldn't have ruined the best chunks of blouse fabric.

I backed the strips with more silk that had belonged to Frank's mother. 

I played with the strips as I  finished sewing, turning, and pressing them.

I think that I would like the strips to have some dimension and not just lay flat on the backing fabric.

Cutting out each Ikat strip, sewing it to the backing silk, turning the resulting tube right-side-out, and pressing the strip is time-consuming but satisfying work.

I am very aware that this quiet slow work is much less time-consuming than creating the ikat. Deconstructing the stripes allows you to focus on the artistry of each stripe. Taking the shirts apart was so slow and so painstaking that this next step feels like I am just speeding along.

I have MANY more strips to make. I have only processed about a sleeve and a third into useable strips.

I love having this to work on as I work on other commissions.